


Something Rotten

by Uakari



Category: Shiritsu Horitsuba Gakuen, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHoLic
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-04-30
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:36:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uakari/pseuds/Uakari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is something rotten in the Academy of Horitsuba, but is it the doomed festival play, the chairwoman's pilfered alcohol, or the threat of a malfunctioning Mokona costume hanging over the staff's heads?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for Arachne_13, who won my fic offering on the Help_Japan auction and very generously donated to the cause. Her request was for Horitsuba crack with every single pairing imaginable and a couple extras added in for fun :D It, um, kind of turned into a long-form project because I am disgustingly verbose and can't do anything simply... But! I hope you enjoy, Arachne_13, and thank you so much for donating!

The small stream of light spilling out from the propped door of the home economics room was the only guide Fay had as he stumbled down the long, dark hallway of Horitsuba Academy. The pre-dawn hours had never been his finest, and today – young though it was – was proving the rule rather than the exception. He swiped irritably at his eyes, knocking away the last stubborn remnants of sleep, and flung the door fully open.

Inside the classroom, Yuui started at the noise and spun to face his brother in a whirlwind of flour and sugar. Fay raised a sleepy eyebrow as Yuui's metal whisk slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor with a dramatic splashing of batter across the counter. "Do I look that bad?" he mumbled as he heaved himself onto one of the counter-height stools that littered the classroom and draped his torso across the worktop, chin balanced precariously atop an upturned palm.

"Good morning to you, too," Yuui chuckled, quickly sopping up the spilled batter before gesturing over his shoulder. "I made some coffee for you. If you could just-" he paused to watch Fay stagger toward the percolator with outstretched arms, "-give me a hand once you've got some…"

"Mmm," Fay mumbled absently. The mug waggled in his shaky hands as he poured himself a cup and duly loaded it to the brim with sugar and powdered creamer. He sniffed suspiciously at the mixture – coffee had never been his drink of choice, but, with the right amount of doctoring, the caffeine would be more than welcome at this loathsome hour. It wasn't so much that he begrudged his brother his assistance, or that he even minded being woken before dawn, but this was  _technically_  a festival prep day, which meant that _technically_  he should have been able to stumble into work a few hours later without class prep work, and that  _technically_  should have placed him in his very warm bed, sandwiched between a snoring lump of gym teacher and the obscenely large, fuzzy bunny Yuui inevitably slipped between the sheets when he hauled himself up and out to take care of…whatever it was he did so blasted early in the morning. As it was, he had been rather pointedly shoved off the mattress when the third alarm had gone off and his bunny usurped by a decidedly cranky and overly muscled demon who had stared at him through burning red eyes and silently threatened death should Fay to attempt to wrangle his frigid limbs back into the bed. He had tried pouting, pleading, and – in a moment of desperation – offering up various uses for his mouth, but all to no avail. All he had received in turn was a muffled grunt and possibly an obscene gesture (Fay wasn't sure about the latter as the fourth alarm he had set chose that exact moment to start chirping away and he had quickly scurried to shut it off before the "muffled grunt" grew into the more dangerous "haggard growl" that usually accompanied the fourth and fifth alarms.)

And so he had ended up here, slightly later than he had promised, but here nonetheless to help his twin with preparations for the Academy's annual bake-sale fundraiser. The sale had been a staple of the spring festival for as long as Fay had been employed by Horitsuba, but this year the chairwoman had made it known that she expected Yuui's extensive experience with European-style pastries to bring in a pretty sum. This, naturally, had set Yuui off onto a week-long experimental baking spree (fueled largely by adrenaline with just a splash of angst over his job security mixed in for good measure) which had not only wreaked havoc on their tiny kitchen, but practically suffocated everyone in a five room radius with the cloud of flour and sugar that choked the air (though Fay had been more concerned at the time that there wasn't enough air in the world  _to begin with_  to support both Yuui's hyperventilating and Kurogane's shouting – he'd been proved wrong almost immediately upon mentioning this to the duo, however, as both the shouting  _and_  the hyperventilating had increased exponentially without catastrophic loss of life). Yuuko had graciously offered the full use of Horitsuba's cooking facilities after several other faculty had complained of their tea being sweeter and far more viscous than normal that afternoon, but these naturally came with the complication of being in use during normal hours, thus leaving Fay sleep-deprived and reliant on this bitter brew to survive the early morning preparations. He sipped carefully at his over-full cup, then splashed a generous amount into the sink and added an extra few spoonfuls of sugar.

"So, then," he mumbled quietly with a quick glance over Yuui's shoulder, "What's on the menu for this morning?"

Yuui set his wisk to rest in the bowl and turned to face his brother, clapping the excess flour from his hands as he surveyed the open counters. "I've got shortcake started here, so if you could slice those strawberries," he pointed to a large crate at the end of the counter, "And whip the –"

Fay stared expectantly at his twin, eyes growing wider with concern the longer and more pregnant the other's pause became. "Whip the…?" he finally prompted.

"Huh? Oh. The cream," Yuui looked anxiously about the classroom, "Didn't you hear that?"

Fay cocked an eyebrow, "Hear what?"

"That…that whining?" Yuui quickly stepped around Fay and stalked to the door to peek his head around the frame.

"I didn't hear any-"

"Shh! There it is again!"

Fay listened more closely this time, straining his ears against the overwhelming silence that blanketed the darkened hallways. He glanced at Yuui, whose eyes were wide with intent and his head cocked at an odd angle in concentration, and redoubled his efforts. And, sure enough, there it was – barely audible above the sound of his own breathing – a faint  _uwaaaaah_  wafting down the hallway.

Fay laughed.

"What are you…?" Yuui rounded on his twin with narrowed eyes. "Why are you laughing?" he demanded, fear rippling through his voice.

"It's just the pipes," Fay laughed and slung an arm around Yuui's shoulders, "God, your face… _ahaha_. What did you think it was, the Soggy Specter?"

"It wasn't-" Yuui snapped to attention, "The Soggy  _what_?"

"Specter," Fay let go his brother's shoulders and danced back to the crate of strawberries. "It's one of the Seven Wonders stories the students tell," he explained as he set about unloading the fruits.

Yuui traipsed slowly back to his mixing bowl, eyes warily tracking Fay's movements. "Why is it soggy?"

"It's a terrible story," Fay sang, waving a paring knife haphazardly above the strawberries, "They say a girl drowned in the showers here and is now cursed to wander the hallways for eternity in search of a towel – drip…drip… _drip_ …"

Yuui grabbed his whisk back up irritably. "She  _drowned_."

"Yes."

"In the  _showers_."

Fay frowned and picked up his neglected coffee mug. "I didn't say it was a  _good_  story," he mumbled, cradling the mug against his chin.

"No," Yuui laughed, "In fact, you said it was terrib-"

It was a much louder  _UWAAAH_  that rang through the classroom this time, punctuated at its end by the impressive  _CRASH_  produced by Fay's coffee mug as it shattered at his feet. The brothers looked at each other in silence for a moment, each searching the other's face for some reassurance of their own sanity that was not forthcoming. Cake batter dripped and pooled at Yuui's feet while Fay tried desperately to ignore the burn of coffee seeping into his socks.

"Ah… _ahaha_ …" Fay finally broke the silence, "It's just the pipes!" He kicked at the ceramic shards littering the ground about his feet.

"Yes," Yuui quickly agreed, racing to the door, "Just the pipes." He slammed the door closed and leaned back against it, breathing far more heavily than the short jaunt across the room should have necessitated. "I think…" he paused, eyes darting quickly around the room, "I think we should finish these up quickly and call it a morning, don't you?"

"Best idea I've heard in days."

 

  
  


* * *

  
  


 

" _What art thou that usurp'st this time of night, together with that fair and warlike form in which the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes march? By heaven, I charge thee, speak!"_

"Excellent, Watanuki!" Subaru called from the front row of the auditorium, "But you still need to seem more scared. You're talking to a ghost in the middle of the night – you need to be terrified!"

Watanuki paused to consider this for a moment before turning back to Subaru with a pained expression. "But you told me to tone it down. How am I supposed to…?"

Subaru tapped the master script against his forehead and pinched his eyes closed. He hadn't actually directed Watanuki to tone down the "scared" acting, so much as he had mentioned (very patiently) that flailing and crying didn't suit the script very well and suggested he take a slightly less… _active_  approach to portraying his fear. He exhaled deeply and looked back to the stage – he was going to reach these children even if he had to sacrifice his sanity to do it, "Just…try making your voice a little bit more wibbly. I think that should do it." He paused as the cast reset their marks and stared blankly back at him, waiting for further instruction. He still wasn't entirely sure what devil had possessed him to take on the position of director for the production of  _Hamlet_  this year's students had been so intent on performing for the spring festival; possibly it was his love of English theater (he had spent several years earning a degree in the subject, after all), or perhaps it was his desire to establish himself as a well-respected teacher within Horitsuba Academy, or (as much as he hated to admit it) it could well have been his fear of being assigned one of the chairwoman's notoriously random and often-times nonsensical tasks (he was  _not_  going to be talked into a Mokona costume again this year, he just  _wasn't_ ). Whatever the original impetus had been, however, he was quickly discovering that it had nothing to do with his innate ability to wring stage-worthy performances from this motley cast of highschoolers, who, while undeniably enthusiastic, were obviously in need of better motivation than his meager directing skills could provide.

" _Uuuwahhh…_ "

Still, he was determined. With the proper hard work and devotion, he had no doubt they would pull off a masterful performance on the day of the festival. In the meanwhile, however…

" _UuuWAHHH…_ "

"Syaoran, what  _are_  you doing?"

Syaoran froze onstage, his arms outstretched at obtuse angles and mouth formed into a wide "O." "I'm haunting," he said very seriously and flashed Subaru a confused look, "Is it wrong? I spent all last night doing research, and found that ghosts should moan and be sort of… _floaty_. So I thought-"

Subaru resisted the urge to laugh. He didn't doubt the boy really  _had_  spent the entire night before researching the topic – had probably spent all night in the library surrounded by books of ghost stories and phantom lore, as a matter of fact – but he really couldn't fathom what sort of text would suggest that ghosts moved so similarly to a seizure patient… "Yes, well, ah…" he grinned at the still-frozen boy's splayed fingers and contorted face, "You don't have to be quite so- What  _were_  you reading, anyway?" Subaru finally asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

Syaoran twitched, but finally dropped his arms to his sides and relaxed his face into a more familiar configuration. "I didn't really read it…" he mumbled, not really wanting to explain how he had wasted several hours of his life (that were  _never_  coming back, no matter how he begged and pleaded with the Time Lords) watching  _Ghost Hunters_  for research, but in the end had given up sometime after the fourth declaration of 'JESUS CHRIST – IT TOUCHED ME!' and opted to seek out other, possibly less reputable sources… "Fai-sensei said there is a ghost that wanders the halls here at night and he did a really detailed impression for me. I guess I didn't get it quite right…"

Subaru felt a chuckle catch in his throat and immediately swallowed it. "No, no," he reassured Syaoran quickly, "I'm sure you got it exactly right," – that would explain the windmill arms and exaggerated flailing at any rate – "It's just that this ghost was the king and he's very angry, so you need to be more solemn and less…" he scoured his brain for the right word, but gave up as the pause became longer and longer, "Like Fai-sensei."

"Oh," Syaoran still seemed puzzled, but nodded just the same, "I will do my best."

"I know you will," Subaru smiled and stretched his arms above his head, "Why don't you four go take a break – we've been at this scene for almost an hour now. We'll work on the next scene – that's Syaoron, Sakura, Suoh, and Doumeki." He leaned back in the folding auditorium chair and checked his watch as the students shuffled on and off the stage. It was barely 10:30; they'd hardly made a dent in the day's rehearsal schedule thus far. It was probably for the best, though, as they only had a week left before the performance and an incredible amount of ground to cover…

He had to wonder if it was an ill portent that "Hamlet" refused to be separated from the sembei he was currently crunching down at an ear-splintering volume, even as "Horatio" batted away the falling crumbs and declared to anyone within earshot that there was indeed something rotten in the state of Denmark, and that it was clearly "Hamlet's" work ethic…

 

  
  


* * *

  
  


 

The chairwoman's heels clacked noisily down the otherwise deserted hallway as she strode with purpose toward the teachers' lounge. She desperately needed a drink; the spring festival was inevitably the busiest time of year for her, what with overseeing booth construction, decoration, and ensuring that each class's contributions lived up to the reputation for style, class, and honor that she'd worked so hard to build for Horitsuba over the years. The festival was meant to be fun, and fun was serious business. Luckily, she had stashed a serious bottle of sake away for the occasion.

She hummed lightly to herself as she twisted the lounge's door handle, and then a bit more harshly when it refused to move. She ratcheted the volume up several  _more_  notches as she jiggled the handle more forcefully and punctuated the softly flitting melody with several throaty grunts.

Eventually she stopped humming altogether and kicked the door.

"Yuuko-sensei!"

Yuuko straightened her back and quickly smoothed down her dress to face her students. She grinned upon seeing the two diminutive balls of fluff hopping about her feet. "Mokonas!" she said cheerily, "What are you doing down this way? Isn't rehearsal still going on?"

"Yes," Soel chirped, "But Subaru-sensei sent us all on a break while he went to go get some aspirin from the nurse.

Yuuko raised an eyebrow at this. The fledgling English teacher had surprised her with his sudden enthusiasm for directing this year. She'd worked hard to bury her disappointment – she'd had the Mokona costume tailored specially for him (so there wouldn't be any further embarrassing incidents with the zipper) and was now tasked with finding someone suitably tall and lanky to fill it… "Is he alright?" she asked, a glimmer of hope flickering across her eyes.

"Oh yes!" Soel assured her, "Everyone has been working very hard!"

"Well that's good to hear!" Yuuko managed brightly. Drat. Well, she supposed she employed enough other tall, lanky professors that finding a replacement wouldn't be impossible. She'd be able to sort the whole mess out over a lovely glass of sake… "Say," she said quietly, crouching down to the Mokona's level, "I don't suppose the two of you would do a favor for me?"

"Of course!" they chirped in unison.

"Thank you!" she patted Larg on the head, "Be dears and run along to Fuuma-sensei's classroom. If he's there, ask him for his lock-breaking kit," she paused, looking thoughtful, "If he tries to deny having one, tell him I have some photos I'd like to show him."

"Okay!" And, with a flourish, they disappeared down the hallway once again, this time toward the mathematics classroom.

Yuuko collapsed against the door with a disgruntled sigh. That sake was going to taste  _delicious_.

 

  
  


* * *

  
  


 

"Kuro-pon-sensei~!" Fay flung himself haphazardly across the couch, "Why don't you believe us? It was terrifying!"

"There is no such thing as ghosts," Kurogane found himself repeating for the hundredth time this afternoon. He plucked Fay's feet up and off the cushions to make room for himself on the sofa and plopped down with a huff. It had been a long day of construction work for the trio – or, rather, a long day of construction work for Kurogane punctuated by random bouts of whining and "artistic critique" from Fay and the occasional hammering of Yuui's fingers. He made a note to keep the cooking teacher away from any power tools tomorrow, but quickly tore it up, burned the scraps, and made a second note not to mention the words "power tools" around either of the brothers, lest all three of them end up in the hospital with bloodied stumps where their limbs used to attach. He pinched the bridge of his nose and ground his teeth, "You two are just idiots…"

"Wah!" Fay wailed, "Kuro-rinta is so cruel!" He freed a pillow from beneath his head, only to fling it at Kurogane a moment later. "Yuui! Did you hear that? He called us idiots again!"

Yuui casually picked the pillow up from the floor, where it had landed after ricocheting from Kurogane's brow, and held it against his twin's mouth. He fixed Kurogane with a stern glare, "Well, then he can sleep on the couch tonight. Besides, I didn't say it was a ghost. I only said we were heard something ghoulish this morning."

"It  _was_  a ghost!" Fay insisted, "It was the Soggy Specter!"

"Oh for-" Kurogane clapped a hand against his forehead, "You're not still going on about that crap, are you? You – oh god, you didn't do the dance again, did you?"

"It's not a  _dance_ , Kuro-puu," Fay scowled, "Syaoran was really very eager to know about ghosts. What was I supposed to do, send him away?"

"You could have told him that ghosts don't exist like a sane, rational adult."

"Ku-RO- _riiiiiin_!"

"Fay!" Yuui snapped, rubbing at his temples, "I've got a splitting headache – can you please tone down the whining?"

"Sorry, Yuui," Fay frowned, "There should be some aspirin stored in the cabinets above the sink. Let me look." He dragged himself to his feet and quickly trotted across the room to rifle through the shelves.

Yuui sank into Fay's empty spot on the couch and sprawled his upper half across Kurogane's lap. "What do we have on the schedule for tomorrow?" he asked, kneading his temples a bit more forcefully, "All construction?"

"Mmm," Kurogane grunted and shifted his hand to massage some of the tension from Yuui's neck, "I don't see why the kids can't do this themselves."

"They're busy!" Fay chided, returning to sit cross-legged on the coffee table in front of the duo. In his right hand, he carried a large green bottle, in his left, he pinched the rims of three strikingly plain cafeteria glasses. "Chairwoman's orders and all," he chuckled and set the glasses next to his thigh.

Yuui raised an eyebrow, "That does not look like aspirin."

"It'll still do the trick, won't it?" Fay shrugged, "I couldn't find the aspirin, but I did find this little gem." He hefted the bottle up to present the label and grinned.

Kurogane scowled and snatched the bottle away. "Where the hell did you get this?" he demanded, eyes raking across the label, "This stuff is expensive!"

"It was in the cabinet," Fay sang, swiping the bottle back and pulling at the cork, "Well, it was underneath a false floor and tucked behind some old text books, but it was still  _in_  the cabinet. So that makes it fair game."

"This seems like a bad idea," Yuui murmured, sitting up as Fay splashed the sake into the glasses and onto the tabletop. He took the offered glass anyway, and sniffed at the wine inside. It certainly  _smelled_  expensive, though he had to admit his tastes were not as refined as the gym teacher's in this regard. He cast a sidelong glance at Kurogane to better gauge his reaction-

-And immediately had to stifle the fit of giggles he felt bubbling up beneath his diaphragm at the look of utter terror plastered across Kurogane's face.

"Kuro-lin," Fay teased, waggling the cup back and forth in front of Kurogane's face, "Don't be such a stick in the mud."

"It's stolen."

"It's  _borrowed_ ," Fay insisted, pressing the half-full cup into Kurogane's hands.

"Which is probably just as bad," Yuui mused, sipping at the sake, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be, as it were. Especially when alcohol is involved."

"As what were?" Fay looked confused as he filled his own glass.

"It's from the play, moron," Kurogane scoffed and leaned back into the sofa. He took a deep drink of the sake and sighed – it was good after all. He hated to think just  _who_  this particular bottle belonged to. The Chairwoman was the most obvious culprit, but he didn't really put this sort of cunning alcoholism past the rest of the staff – especially that creep in the nurse's office. He shuddered; the last time he had crossed Seishiro, he had woken up with a rash and head lice crawling in the damnedest places…

Yuui stretched his feet across Kurogane and chuckled, "I'm surprised you recognized that, Kurogane."

"What? Why?"

Fay's eyes sparkled, "Seems a bit outside your area of expertise…"

" _Tche_. And it's not out of yours?"

"Well, you know…"

"What?" Kurogane rocked forward in his seat and grinned ferally, "Are you saying I can't have hobbies?"

"Ahahaha. To thine own self be true, I supp-"

 _  
Uuuuwaaaaaah   
_

Kurogane supposed he  _might_  have been more prepared for the flailing tangle of lanky blond that landed in his lap seconds later, but that would have required a reasonable estimate of the moron's Idiot Quotient – as the last three men known to have undertaken the calculation of such had all suffered horrible fates (far worse than rashes and head lice), Kurogane felt slightly better about dropping his glass to the floor as Fay careened into him and clutched spastically at this shirt.

"It's back!" Fay wailed and buried his face into Kurogane's neck "Ifsashanyspwt!"

Kurogane rolled his eyes and pulled Fay's head back to stare into the chemistry teacher's whimpering face. "What's back?" he demanded as Fay's eyes grew ever wider.

 _  
Uuuuwaaaaaah   
_

"It's the Soggy Specter!" Fay cried and attempted to burrow into Kurogane's chest, "She's come back for our blood!"

"Will you-" Kurogane pulled at Fay's arms, which were coming dangerously close to cutting off his air supply with their vice-like grip around his middle, "Stop. This.  _Nonsense_!" He gripped Fay's wrists tightly and extended his own arms out to the sides, leaving Fay to hang between them like a limp noodle on a clothesline. Fay, for his part, whimpered softly, _clearly_  faking the tears that were falling from his-

 _Oh for-_  Kurogane scrunched his face into its middle. Was the moron actually  _scared_  by this? He loosed one of Fay's wrists to relocate his grip to the chemistry teacher's chin. "Listen," he growled, yanking Fay's face to meet his own, "There is no such thing as-"

 _  
Driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink   
_

Kurogane abruptly dropped Fay's face and froze in position on the sofa. Fay rubbed at his abused chin and crawled over Kurogane to settle himself in Yuui's lap, clutching at him instead and finding his twin much more amenable to his needy fearfulness; Yuui ran a hand through Fay's hair and mumbled vaguely soothing noises as he stared down the door.

 _  
Needadriiiiiiiink   
_

"I don't think that's a ghost," Yuui said carefully.

Kurogane's head cranked around slowly, jerkily to face the cooking teacher, his eyes round as saucers and teeth bared in a maniacal grin. "No," he agreed, "It's much,  _much_  worse."

Yuui nodded and scooped Fay up from his lap. His eyes darted briefly around the room before coming back to meet

Kurogane's. "Window?"

Kurogane nodded. " _Window_."

 

  
  


* * *

  
  


 

" _Ay, that incestuous, that_ ADULTERATE BEAST _. With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts – O wicked wit and gifts that have the power so to seduce! – won to his_ SHAMEFUL LUST _the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen!"_

Subaru coughed and waved his script in the air, waiting patiently for Syaoran to finish his line before shouting, "Cut!" The students on stage froze, then turned toward him curiously.

"That's the right line, isn't it?" Syaoran asked nervously, the angry consternation that had accompanied his… _spirited_  recital melting from his face, "Was I still too much like Fay-sensei?"

"Um," Subaru wrinkled his brow. Did the kid really not realize…? "It's just… The anger is good – keep that going – but you're accenting strange words and staring off into the audience rather than looking and Doumeki and you just seem-" –  _a bit like Seishiro, which is unreasonably disconcerting_ – "It's just not working."

"Oh," Syaoran looked apologetically at Subaru and mumbled something that sounded like "Sorry." Subaru smiled and opened his mouth to reassure the boy, but snapped it shut again as Syaoran's face immediately hardened back into its previous icy mask and resumed its angry glaring into the audience. Subaru sighed and followed Syaoran's line of vision, wondering what could possibly have upset the normally sunny and earnest boy so badly. He'd been half expecting to find the entirety of the cosplay club making papier-mâché masks from the library's collection of out-of-print books (and possibly insulting the kid's mother), and so was mildly surprised when he found only a gaggle of players patiently awaiting their turn on the stage. They all seemed relatively mellow – especially for the death glares they were receiving – apart from several girls who were excitedly chirping over a brightly colored package that Sakura unwrapped as Syaoron looked on eagerly over her shoulder-

Subaru whipped his head back to the stage. Was that it? Little brother putting the moves on his girlfriend? Or maybe he was moving in on his brother's – Subaru could never keep track of which one was dating her… Possibly  _both_  of them, for all he knew – this school seemed to take identical twins and breed odd couplings and threesomes and all other manner of ridiculousness out of them like it was going out of style ( _probably something in the water_ , Subaru decided, and made a note to stick to sake – though, knowing the chairwoman, he couldn't guarantee  _that_  was safe either). He pushed the disquieting thoughts aside for the moment, however, and refocused on the stage.  _This was more important now._

"Alright, let's try that again. Syaoran – take it back to 'I find thee apt.'"

Syaoran nodded vigorously, shook away the stony grimace holding his face hostage, and sucked down several deep breaths before turning to face Doumeki once again. " _I find thee apt_ ," he began, " _And duller shouldst thou be than the fat week that roots itself in ease on the Lethe wharf, WOULDS'T thou not STIR in this. Now, HAMLET, hear. 'Tis given out THAT, sleeping in my ORCHARD-"_

"CUT!" Subaru shouted and slapped the script against his face.

Syaoran looked crestfallen. "I'm sorry-"

"It's not your fault," Subaru pinched the bridge of his nose, "You can't help but recite that way with the hammers banging away like that." He paused, hoping the stage crew would take his subtle hint and sighing when the background banging continued. "Guys?" he called loudly, "OI! STAGE CREW!" He bit his lip as three heads popped out around the edges of the curtain. "Can you give that a rest for a few minutes?"

The dark-haired one – Touya Kinomoto, Sakura's older, but no less polyamorously inclined older brother – eyed up his two silver-haired companions before frowning back a Subaru. "Well," he said slowly, "We can… But we should really keep working while-"

 _  
THUD   
_

Subaru's eyes grew wide as boyfriend number one – the short-haired one, Yu-something (though they were  _both_  Yu-something, Subaru noted with the barest hint of admiration for Touya's consistency) – collapsed to the floor. "Is he okay?"

Touya sighed and clapped a hand against his face. "Yeah, he's just sleeping. Happens all the time. Yue, give me a hand with Yuki here, would you?"

Subaru watched in mild horror as the remaining stage crew gently lifted their sleeping counterpart and laid him at the side of the stage with a wadded up costume dress beneath his head. Tomoyo, who had been cheerfully gushing over Sakura's gift until the THUD, immediately leapt from her seat and fluttered off backstage, declaring she had many more ruffled fabrics amongst her mess there that would be more appropriate for a pillow. Subaru could only stare from his front-row seat with a hand clapped over his mouth. He supposed he really couldn't complain – it had been hard enough to even  _find_  three college students who were willing to build sets part-time for what amounted to peanuts. So he'd hired a narcoleptic – so what? It could be worse, right?

If he had been a more callous man, he might have stewed for a bit on how the application process might have included questions such as "Will you pass out while operating large, possibly dangerous, mechanized equipement; or, barring that, a hammer?" He might also have attempted to contrive a way to slip those questions past the school's absurdly inclusive hiring policies or looked for a loophole to relieve himself of this newly discovered walking hazard. As he was not a callous man, however, he merely took the opportunity to wonder why the lights in the auditorium were so bright and seemed to pulse with a remarkably steady rhythm.

He sank deeper into his seat, allowing the fabric to swallow him whole, and wondered just what  _kind_  of "aspirin" Seishiro had given him this time.

 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Yuuko carefully wrapped Fuuma's lock picking tools back into their carrying case and tucked the lovingly scrawled note he had sent with them (detailing his utter devotion both to the school and her impeccable leadership) into her shirt and looked around the teacher's lounge in disgust. She had opened the door just in time to see the last of a dark head of hair disappear out the window. By the time she had crossed over to said window, all that remained were the tips of several spikes sticking up between the leaves of the hedges below – black spikes that were making ridiculously good time in their break for freedom down the hedgerow. She cocked an eyebrow and slammed the window shut. Surely there were  _rules_ about teachers exiting through windows and crawling through the shrubbery?

But that could wait – what she really needed now was to find that bottle of sake she'd stashed away for days like today, when she was trapped here amongst deadlines and details without the aid of Watanuki to head down the shops to procure more alcohol. She ran through a quick list of her usual hiding places before remembering that she'd stashed it in the medicine cabinet above the sink-

The same medicine cabinet that was torn apart, with her carefully constructed false floor hanging haphazardly through the open doors…

Her eyes grew wide as an icy panic crept up her spine.

She dashed back to the window, but all traces of the dark spikes had vanished, their escape flawless and complete. With a moan of despair, she sank onto the sofa, cupping her throbbing head in both hands.  _Those bastards!_  They'd even taken the bottle with them, leaving only the three cups to clutter the coffee table.

This infraction could not go unpunished. Oh  _no_  – this was beyond the bounds of mere cruelty! Had they no compassion for her, in her over-worked and increasingly sober state? It was going to be hours before she could leave, and by then it might be too late; the hangover from this afternoon's imbibing would have undoubtedly set in and where would she be then? Cold, aching, and alone in this dreadful teachers' lounge – that's where! It was the worst of all possible futures…

 _  
Revenge   
_   
. She would have her revenge upon the scoundrels who had left her so utterly high and dry. She grinned at the thought and picked up one of the abandoned glasses, careful not to set her fingers against the rim. She would need proof – engaging in this type of behavior required the proper defenses against the school board and, more importantly, the shockingly humorless PTA – but if these numbskulls had been lax enough to leave behind their glasses and whatever genetic material might have clung to them, well, they certainly had no choice but to accept the punishment dealt to them, did they?

She scooped the remaining glasses from the tabletop and headed toward the nurse's office. Revenge would be hers.

  



	2. Act II

Subaru tipped his face forward into his palms, the rickety auditorium chair beneath him groaning as he slumped. He was seated too far back to see explicitly all the details of the scandal acting itself out, undirected, on the stage, but still had enough of a view (curse that demon chairwoman and her extensive remodeling of the academy's performance centers… "No bad seat in the house," indeed) to make out the more excessive breaches of decorum.

He huffed, embarrassed, into his hands. Probably, he ought to have excused himself as ill this morning. It is, after all, what most normal people would have done upon finding a box of fancy, foil wrapped chocolate hearts in their pigeon hole…only to discover upon popping one carelessly into mouth that there was no chocolate involved _and_ that chicken livers tasted even _more_ foul when they hadn't been cooked. The attached note ("For your health, Subaru-kun. You've been looking a bit anemic lately – enjoy the iron! Yours, Sei-chan"), scrawled with loving affection though it may have been, did nothing to ease his mind, or his violent retching. Luckily, he'd been able to quiet himself before the chairwoman clip-clopped past him on her way to the head office; he certainly didn't want to be responsible for yet _another_ faculty meeting to discuss "appropriate" inter-co-worker interactions, "proper" displays of affection, and "why" the sharps container in the nurse's station was not an acceptable place to bend your lover over during third period (he _knew_ they ought to have been more discreet about that, but how could he have possibly have known that the Li twins would have chosen that exact moment to collide on the pitcher's mound during gym class?).

If he had chosen to react like a _normal_ person, instead of a glutton for punishment whose devotion to his students and capacity for making excuses for his… _friend_ (lover? stalker? over-amorous acquaintance?) exceeded all reasonable thresholds, he might have been spared the post-dinner digestive pyrotechnic extravaganza that exploded throughout the auditorium that evening. (Several of the girls had brought rice balls for the rest of the cast, and no one had apparently thought to check the "use by" date on the can of salmon they'd opened. There were whispers floating around that it had once again been Himawari to bring the tainted rice balls, though Subaru was more inclined to blame a certain cooking teacher for not keeping a careful eye on his supplies…) _Had_ he missed out on the digestive pyrotechnic extravaganza, he would almost certainly not have found himself here, set as far back from ground-zero as the auditorium allowed, watching the stand-in "Rosencrantz" and "Guildenstern" make out, center-stage and under a full, glorious spotlight, while the remainder of the cast (those who hadn't needed to be rushed off to the nurse) stared with a mixture of shocked disbelief and outright horror.

"Can we just-" he started to yell at Touya and Yukito, and cut himself off as he realized he was mumbling into his palms. "Can we _PLEASE_ get back to rehearsal now?" Why? _Why_ couldn't he just yell and tell them how terrifically inappropriate this all was? They were only college students – the academy was paying them for their work! They were meant to be constructing sets! He was grateful they'd offered to stand in for the ill students, but this was too much! This was-

"I'm sorry, I need them that way," a sharp voice broke into his stream of silent complaints. Yue dropped down from the lighting rig to land with a thud on the stage and glared back at Subaru. "I need the subtle movements of their faces to ensure the lights are properly placed. Without that, I can't guarantee your audience will be able to see the difference between vowels when your….er, _actors_ speak."

Subaru balked and tapped the script against his forehead. "Can't they just… _talk_?" he said at last.

Yue raised an eyebrow as he considered this. After a long moment, he folded his arms across his chest, "No."

"Fine," Subaru pinched his temples, "But they can't do that here. This is a high school, not a burlesque show." He was quite proud of himself for the strength in his voice, just there. "Why don't you go work up the lighting rig backstage if you absolutely must have them… _moving_ like that." Kissing seemed to be the wrong descriptor here, as there were most certainly roaming hands involved, and at least one knee…

"What," Yue scoffed, "And drag it all back in here once it's done?"

"Yes."

Yue sneered at this, but sighed resignedly and stalked offstage, muttering to himself about _not appreciating his artistic vision_. It was all a rather moot point, though, as "Guildenstern" chose that exact moment to slump unceremoniously to the stage floor and commence snoring.

"Never mind," Subaru called, grinning despite himself, "Just get Yukito someplace where he can rest. Let's go from Hamet's entrance – he should have woken up by the time he's supposed to be onstage again. Where are Polonius and Hamlet?"

Doumeki emerged from behind the curtain as he was called, trailed closely by Watanuki, who was, in fact, not standing in for Polonius, but _was_ making an incredible amount of noise concerning Doumeki's state of dress. Or at least about the dress he was wearing.

"I'm Ophelia today, too," Doumeki reminded him, prying one grabbing hand away from his skirts.

"But you're not Ophelia now!" Watanuki raged and dug his fingers deeper into the fabric, "There is no reason for you to be out here in public in a dress right now!"

"You didn't mind it-"

" _Shut up about that!"_

"Um, Watanuki," Subaru coughed, "Horatio is not in this scene, so why don't you have a seat. Doumeki…" he sighed, "The dress is kind of distracting – can you take it off for now?"

"It's stuck," Doumeki said, tugging at the bodice.

Subaru was a bit too far back to see in detail, but the corseted top did appear to be straining against his much-larger-than-it-was-meant-to-accommodate torso. "Fine," he said, slumping back into his chair, "Let's just get on with it then," he paused as "Polonius," crept up on stage and cursed beneath his breath. "Kentaro, you are _not_ Polonius. Where is Takashi?"

Not-Polonius flushed a deep shade of red and stared at the ground. "He's, well, he had to go home early. He was looking a bit pale after all of the mess this afternoon, so I…"

 _Scolded him until he stormed out of rehearsal_ , Subaru filled in silently. It wouldn't have been so annoying if the exact same thing hadn't happened yesterday. Or the day before that. Or if the reason Takashi had been looking pale had more to do with illness and less to do with an over-zealous make-up artist. "It's okay-"

"He doesn't get enough vegetables-"

"I _said_ it's fine," Subaru said firmly, and felt a bit like he'd just kicked a puppy with Kentaro staring back at him with those hopeful eyes and dopey grin. "Let's just get on with it, shall we?" He grinned, probably a bit maniacally, but it was all he could muster at the moment. He sank back in his chair as the recital started; he was glad that they were all learning their lines so quickly, but there was something… _off_ about the way Doumeki rattled through the script. Something…

"—all which, sir. Though I most powerfully and potently believe. Yet. I hold it not honesty to have it. Thus set down. For yourself. Sir. Should be old as I am. If like a crab you could go backward."

"Doumeki, you have got to stop deadpanning your lines!" he shouted before his mind caught up with his mouth. He smacked the script against his forehead again – he was going to have a welt at this rate – and took a deep breath. "You're supposed to be convincing Polonius that you're insane – you can't just mumble through in monotone! You've got to have some quirks! Some passion! You need to be…need to be…"

Doumeki's eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly, "More like Watanuki?"

"Yes!" Subaru exclaimed, then winced as he saw the role-model in question fly into a flailing fit of hysterics at the side of the stage, "I mean – _NO_. You just need to be more _insane_ , okay?" God, he felt like crying. This was supposed to be fun, wasn't it? Why did everything have to come crashing down so spectacularly with only the slightest provocation! This whole production was going to burst into flames by opening night – _all of it_ , the stage, the costumes, and probably himself – and he just knew he was going to end up stuffed into that horrible Mokona suit again-

"Alternatively, you could act like Subaru-sensei, here."

"Don't talk about my brother that way, you over-sized pain in the ass! What are you even doing here, anyway?"

Subaru lifted his head from its unbearable nest of angst in his arms to find his brother and Fuuma standing at the back entrance to the auditorium, apparently engaged in a scuffle with their elbows as well as their words. He didn't know what they were doing here – he'd given Kamui explicit instructions to stay away from the theater while he was working, lest his older twin indulge in another of his fits of over-protectiveness…which seemed to be _exactly_ where this was heading.

"Don't be ridiculous," Fuuma smirked, "Gibbering is a classic symptom of insanity."

"He's not _gibbering_."

"I'm not _gibbering_!" Subaru insisted and clambered to his feet to meet them at the doorway. If he was lucky, he might be able to keep them from getting their feet in past the frame and then shut the door on them. And lock it. Securely.

"Barry," Kamui cooed and reached out to stroke his twin's face, "Look at yourself! You're-"

"Don't call me Barry at work," Subaru hissed and poked a finger into Kamui's chest, "What are you two even doing here?"

"We came to help!" Fuuma answered with a grin.

"How are you going to help?" Subaru wondered, staring up at Fuuma. He seemed well-meaning enough, but… "You're a math teacher!"

"I have an artsy side!" Fuuma insisted, clamping a fist around the arm Kamui had just used to jab into his side, "Besides, he's a philosophy teacher! Not exactly _director_ material, either. On top of which, brother said you've been coming down with chronic headaches since you started this. You know how… _worried_ he gets about you, _Subaru-kun_."

Subaru clapped a hand over his face. Of all the times…

"He can die in a fire," Kamui hissed threateningly and dug the heel of his boot into Fuuma's toes, "And so can you. Now get out of here and let me give my brother a hand."

"Now, now, Kamui," Fuuma stealthily wrapped an arm around Kamui's waist and hoisted him a foot into the air. He shook out his abused foot with a grin. "That isn't very nice. I'm here to help, after all."

"Here to help your brother torture mine."

"What can I say? I'm a giver."

Subaru had had enough. They had to leave. _Now_. "Thank you," he growled (or attempted to growl…he wasn't really good with growling), "But I can assure you both that I have everything under control here." He gave them a purposeful shove backward, which accomplished nothing. "You can both go back to your festival preparations and leave us in peace-"

Kamui kicked into Fuuma's gut, wrenching his body around in the split second of stupor this bought him and came to land beside his twin – fully inside the theater with little chance of forcing him back out. "Don't be silly, Barry," he smiled, "Why don't you go have a rest. I'll take care of things from here." And with that he sauntered forward, a slight skip in his step as he made his way down the aisle, and clapped his hands together loudly. "Alright, you little shits! Everyone in their places."

Subaru stared as Fuuma followed down toward the stage with a sympathetic shrug. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing they were both here, after all… And maybe seeing if Seishiro had any more of that "aspirin" wouldn't be such a bad thing either…

* * *

Kurogane surveyed the booth he'd spent the better part of the afternoon banging together – still crouched with his hammer at the ready, nails hanging from the corner of his mouth – and saw that it was good. He leaned back onto his heels and smirked.

"Oh good lord, he's getting _that_ look. Kuro-sama, you're not thinking in biblical terms again, are you?"

Kurogane twisted his feet below him, turning to glare at the bored chemistry teacher sitting cross-legged at the corner of the stall (where he'd been exiled after repeated attempts to hammer _screws_ into ply board earlier this afternoon). Yuui was already busily clucking his tongue, reminding his twin that Kurogane was _Japanese_ , and therefore more likely to be thinking in Shinto terms, but Kurogane ignored all that and grinned toothily. "It's _beautiful_ ," he insisted.

"Well, yes," Fay grudgingly agreed, "It certainly is _that_. But Kuro-rinta! I'm so _bored_!" He pouted his bottom lip out to accentuate this point and let his hands flop to the sides.

Kurogane twisted at a nearby bolt, "S'your own fault," he mumbled around the nails, "Just stay still till we're done here. Wrench." The last was directed toward the other Fluorite twin, kneeling at his other side, who dutifully plucked the adjustable wrench from its brethren and passed it off. Kurogane imagined that this must be what it was like to be a head surgeon…if all of his nurses were complete idiots who were not to be trusted with either scalpel or forceps…

Well, that wasn't entirely fair. Yuui could at least _identify_ most of the tools, even if their proper use escaped him more often than not (his poor, bandaged fingers spoke volumes of _that_ failing…). _Fay_ was…well, in all honesty Fay was probably just out to push his buttons. He knew the idiot couldn't be that much of…an idiot. Not when he ran his own lab with all the bells and whistles he was so fond of boasting about.

"Kuro-tan is just jealous," Fay continued, "He wanted to be the meat in the sandwich."

Kurogane dropped the wrench. "I _told_ you to stop talking about that!" he hissed, "Don't you have _any_ shame? Do you know how fast we'll get fired if you pull that in front of the students again?"

Fay waved this away. "Nobody saw-"

" _Everybody_ saw."

"Nobody _died_."

Kurogane's head slumped into his chest, "What the _hell_ does that have to do with anything?"

"Well it's better than somebody dying, isn't it?"

"He's right, you know," Yuui smirked.

"Not you, too," Kurogane groaned and reached back for his abandoned hammer, having suddenly spotted several nails that hadn't been beaten well enough to meet his approval. "No one's going to die because you two can't keep your hands to yourselves. It's just-" _SMACK_ "-you're worse-" _SMACK_ "-than the goddamned kids!" _SMACK_

"Now _that's_ not true," Yuui said thoughtfully, catching the hammer on the backswing before it went flying out of Kurogane's grip, "You wouldn't believe the things I've caught the Li twins up to with Sakura-chan…"

"Sakura-chan would _never_!" Fay squealed indignantly. He seemed very sure of this, which amused both his twin and Kurogane to no end. He shuffled further back into the corner of the booth and clapped his hands over his ears. "I won't hear of it!"

Yuui and Kurogane shared a _look_ before mutually rolling their eyes and turning back to their task. "And then, of course, there was that business during third period last week," Yuui continued, "In the nurse's office. Sounded… _painful_."

Kurogane shuddered at the memory and reset his grip on the hammer. "Alright, so maybe we won't get _fired_ ," he conceded (though he _wondered_ about this school's policies), "But do you really want to be lumped into the same pile as _that_ nutcase?"

"A fair point," Yuui agreed and shivered. He suddenly felt very cold, and could count each individual hair as it stood up along his neck. "Does anyone else feel that?"

"The icy fingers of death?" Kurogane mumbled, stilling his hammer, his heart squeezed with an unnamed fear, "Yeah, I feel it. Seems to be coming from…" he looked around them slowly before settling his gaze on the second story windows, "Up there."

"It's the ghost!"

"It's not the _ghost_ ," Yuui murmured, watching the curtains of the chairwoman's office flutter closed, "But we'd probably better be on our guard anyway."

* * *

The chairwoman let the curtains drop behind her as she stalked away from the window, her icy glare directed instead toward the pile of evidence she had collected that now rested on her desk. Three glasses, in all, fantastically smeared lip-prints decorating the rims of each. She grinned – it was all she required, and even if she couldn't make use of the technology to process the evidence, there were plenty of people here who _could_. The _real_ trick had been finding someone who would willingly turn on their fellow teachers.

There was a knock at the door and she called for them to enter. _Or perhaps it hadn't been so difficult after all._

"Good afternoon, Seishiro," she grinned as the academy's nurse stepped through her doorway, "Such a pleasure to see you this fine day. And so kind of you to take time away from your duties," she lifted an eyebrow, "I trust you've found someone to fill in in your absence?"

"Of course, my dearest chairwoman," Seishiro bowed deeply, sweeping his arm out in a grand gesture of obeisance. "Subaru-kun has kindly agreed to watch over things in my absence."

"Ahh, yes," she swept around her desk with a flourish and tapped at his lower lip with a long finger, "Subaru. I daresay he might find my proposition of interest as well."

"Oh?" Seishiro stepped forward, a still-concealed grin teasing up the corners of his mouth, "And what might that be?"

"I imagine, with your medical background, that you're familiar with some of the new genetic testing equipment the academy has recently acquired for the biology labs?"

Seishiro raised an eyebrow, "The electrophoresis equipment? Of course, my dear. Anyone with a background in biology has at least _some_ experience with them."

"Excellent news," her grin spread from ear to ear, "Being a classics instructor myself, I can't make heads nor tails of all this…biological hooey. I have been told, however, that you should, in theory, be able to make a match from a saliva sample?"

Seishiro's eyes flitted briefly to the glasses lining the chairwoman's desk. "Yes," he agreed slowly, "I suppose I might be able to do something like that. Though I'll require something to match."

"That," she said, leaning closely in, "I will leave up to you to collect. By whatever means you deem necessary, though I'll ask that you keep your assignment to yourself. It might be… _troublesome_ if they knew what you were up to."

"Of course, I shall stay absolutely mum," Seishiro assured her, "And who might my vic- _targets_ be?"

"Have a look for yourself," she answered, gesturing toward the window and waiting patiently as he crossed the room to lift the curtains.

"The gym teacher?"

"The gym teacher," she moved to stand beside him, one arm draping languidly across his shoulders, "The very _same_ gym teacher who couldn't keep enough control of his students to keep them from smashing face-first into each other during third period last week. And the very same who couldn't manage even a single bandage for their noses on his own…without the aid of the school nurse."

Seishiro's face brightened with understanding. "I see," he said quickly, "And as there are three glasses, I expect the other two are suspected as well?" He licked his lips.

Yuuko's face curled into a flowing grin. "Yes," she gripped his chin and angled his face toward her own, "Succeed here, and I'll forget all about that little incident with the sharps container. And," she continued, her expression brightening, "I'll guarantee that lovely _Subaru-kun_ won't ever have to struggle, stuffed into the mascot costume ever again."

Seishiro's face fell, "That's rather a shame," he admitted, "He did look so… _ravishing_ , with the floppy ears and all."

"He _did_ , didn't he?" Yuuko agreed enthusiastically (it really _was_ such a loss, but if all went well here…). She dropped his chin to clasp her hands together thoughtfully. "I'll loan it to you," she decided at last, "But you'll owe me pictures."

Seishiro grinned at this and lowered himself to one knee, taking her hand and graciously pressing her knuckles to his lips. "Anything for my dearest chairwoman."

"You are _truly_ an asset to this academy," Yuuko grinned as he rose, "The best of luck to you."

She waited until he had closed the door behind him before rummaging through the false-bottomed drawers of her desk for a sizeable bottle of sake Watanuki had been kind enough to fetch for her on his way into campus this morning. She filled one of her own glasses generously and returned to her post at the window – momentarily, anyway. What she really needed was some ice for her drink – revenge was, after all, a dish best served cold.

* * *

Fay had to admit that the lantern lights decorating the school yard really were his favorite part of the festivals here. He had nothing to compare them to in his own youth, and they really did lend the entire setting a sort of ethereal glow – even if the mood was slightly spoilt by the sounds of school children still working to hammer together booths and signs. It almost made his day of scolding and being made to sit very quietly while Kurogane cursed and looked altogether too smug about his own handiwork worth it.

He leaned back against Yuui's chest and opened his mouth wide, pleased when his twin deposited a heaping forkful of fried noodles on his tongue. A plastic forkful, the sight of which was causing Kurogane no end of disgruntlement. Fay grinned around his mouthful. "Kwum awn, Kulo-thama-thensei," he mumbled, cheeks shockingly full, "Juth enthoy yowa moodles."

"Tche," Kurogane scoffed, plucking a bite of his own noodles from the Styrofoam take-out container in his lap – properly, with _chopsticks_ – and settling back against the wall of the booth. He didn't look _terribly_ upset, though, which was terribly upsetting.

"You're getting spoiled," Fay continued, eyebrows waggling as he swallowed, "Yuui's cooking is much better than this rubbish-" he squealed as Yuui dug a finger into his side, "-but even a great and mighty lord of the kitchen like him needs a break! So eat up!" He opened his mouth to receive another forkful.

"We really ought to get home soon," Yuui yawned behind him, "I've got to be up early in the morning again to get into the kitchens and- _OW!_ " he dropped the fork into the food container abruptly and ran his head across his head, "Did you just _pluck my hair?_ "

"Hmm?" Fay tilted his head back lazily, "How would I have done that from down here? I think you would have seen m- _OW!_ " He mimicked his twin's earlier swatting and flailing at his hair, "What in the-"

"Got him," Kurogane said casually and yanked his arm forward, dragging a clearly off-guard school nurse barreling over his shoulders and onto the floor of the booth. "What are you doing, you bastard?" he growled as Seishiro rubbed at his head.

"Nothing at all!" Seishiro assured them with a Cheshire grin and fished through the pockets of his jacket, "I only wanted to get the opinion of such an illustrious chef as yourself," he winked lasciviously at Yuui and Fay felt the bile rise into his stomach. Kurogane seemed to experience something similar and spat his mouthful of noodles onto the floor. Seishiro pointedly ignored this and produced three bottle of soda from his jacket, cracking the cap off of each and popping a straw into their necks before passing them around.

Fay raised an eyebrow, "You want a chef's opinion on soda?"

"Oh yes!" Seishiro insisted, "I wouldn't trust anyone else's!" He squinted between Fay and Kurogane for a moment before appending, "I want yours' too, of course. Tell me; how's the flavor balance? Would you say it's over-carbonated? Too sweet?" He stared, almost excitedly, as Fay and Yuui tentatively lifted the bottles to their lips and took a pull through their straws.

"It's a bit warm," Yuui answered flatly.

"Oh?" Seishiro didn't look the least bit concerned by this. "Be sure you're getting a good taste-" he pinched Fay's straw between his fingers and dragged it in and out across Fay's lips a few times before continuing on to Yuui's. He looked as if he were contemplating crossing the few steps over to Kurogane, but then seemed to think better of it, his outstretched hand snapping back up toward his shoulder as he turned back toward the twins. "You know," he said, rubbing his chin, I think these straws might be getting in the way of the full experience. Let me-" he quickly plucked the straws from each of their bottles and shoved them into plastic baggies.

Kurogane growled "What are you-"

"Environmental safety!" Seishiro exclaimed before Kurogane could even finish his thought, "We want to keep this campus clean, don't we?"

Fay opened his mouth to agree – sort of – but Seishiro had already leapt over the booth's serving counter and was making good time back toward the highschool's main building. "I'll expect a full report in the morning!" he called over his shoulder.

"I don't see why she keeps him on," Yuui huffed as he emptied the contents of his bottle on the dirt floor of the booth.

"Goddamned psychopath," Kurogane agreed, chucking the whole of his bottle beneath the counter. He looked skeptically at Fay, who was still staring quizzically at the bottle in his hands, "You didn't _drink_ any of that, did you?"

"Hmm," Fay smiled, feeling faintly buzzy,"I might have…"

"Goddamn it…"

"Fay…"

"His pupils are dilating," Kurogane growled, lurching forward across the booth, "Let's get the idiot home before whatever that was kicks in fully."

Fay only smiled as the world seemed to spin around him. Subaru was right - Seishiro really _did_ have the best drugs...


	3. Act III

Yuui moved quickly through the hallways, darting around corners, throwing open the steel doors that thwarted him seemingly every hundred feet, and pointedly ignoring the blaring alarms that sounded every few seconds. _Fire, his ass_. He knew damned well where the alarm had started from (or at least who had pulled it) and hell if he was going to pony up the cash to pay the fine for another one his twin's little misadventures. Kurogane followed closely behind him, cursing his stocking-clad feet as they slipped and skidded against the asbestos tiling, and eventually slammed directly into his back as Yuui caught the doorframe of the chemistry lab and slid to an abrupt halt in front of it.

 _Goddamn it._

"I knew it was a bad idea to let that moron come in today," Kurogane growled, surveying the damage. At least the idiot had managed to put the flames out before running. Even if it did mean the better half of the room was covered with extinguisher suds. "I'm gonna kill that nurse…"

"I'll help you," Yuui grumbled and tugged at the ends of his hair, "Still…at least there was an actual fire this time."

 _"This time?"_ Kurogane demanded and rounded back on the more sensible of the Fluorite twins, "What do you mean _this time?_ You failed to mention that this sort of thing was a habit."

"It's not a _habit_ ," Yuui insisted (they wouldn't be able to afford the cost if it were), "It's more like a…" he trailed off, searching for the words.

"A hobby?"

"A _symptom_ ," Yuui said finally and nodded to himself. That seemed the best way to describe it. He had no idea just _what_ that sociopathic bastard of a school nurse had slipped his brother the night before, but the pattern of behavior it seemed to be producing was familiar enough that he was forced to give himself a good mental thrashing for not gleaning on to it sooner. He had known from the moment he had woken up to a half-empty bed (before the first alarm had even sounded) this morning that _something_ was off, it had just taken him a disappointingly long time to place exactly what that _something_ was. In retrospect, he supposed his willingness to write off the burst of cold water waiting for him in the shower as bad luck (or at least bad plumbing on the part of the academy) and the emptied bottle of body wash as a nuisance had been a bit naive. Fay's later complaints that his breakfast cereal was as cold and soulless as himself probably should have raised a few flags, but they had paled in comparison to some of his more colorful diatribes on the exact texture of oatmeal and Yuui had been unable to muster the inclination to do more than roll his eyes and fob him off with the plastic submarine in the bottom of the cereal box.

He supposed it really wasn't his fault that liberal application of eyeliner fit in so well with Fay's normal antics that he hadn't suspected anything until said eyeliner began to run in streaks down his twin's face. Of course, _that_ had only happened because the jeans he'd ransacked the closet to find were now two sizes too small (instead of the very stylish one –size-too small he had intended) and had split down the back when he'd bent too quickly to lace up his long-abandoned purple converse. And there was really no excuse for him not stopping the fool from hiding the split beneath an enormous hoodie rather than finding a new pair of pants.

Yuui sighed. Most people divorced their teenage angst and never looked back; his brother seemed intent on stoking the fires of romance every few years.

"A symptom, huh?" Kurogane sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "So what's the cure?"

Yuui snorted at this. "We'll probably need to talk to Seishiro for that," he muttered, "But for now, we should focus on finding Fay." He drummed his fingers against the counter and wondered if this was going to turn out as badly as the time their dog had died while they were away on a school trip. If that was the case, he was going to need to invest in copious amounts of Vaseline (and probably some bacon as well, but he hoped it wouldn't come to that). "And if I know him, he's probably…" he slapped a hand against his forehead and sprinted back into the hallway.

Kurogane nearly collided with him once again as he screeched to a halt in front of the men's room. There was a definite racket coming from inside, and Fay did have a certain fondness for barricading himself into small spaces when he got into these moods (the brightly lit mirrors were a bonus for eyeliner reapplication, provided he could summon the strength of will to stare into his "cold, soulless eyes" for the requisite amount of time). Yuui pressed his ear against the door; whoever was inside seemed to be having a very… _spirited_ argument with himself over the merits of his wardrobe…

It had to be Fay. Yuui threw the door open and dragged Kurogane across the threshold, only to force him bodily into the nearest stall a second later and slam the door shut behind them.

 _"What the hell are you doing?"_ Kurogane growled.

Yuui clapped a hand across his mouth and nodded over his shoulder. "That's not Fay," he hissed.

"Why would you think it would be?" Kurogane spat out against his palm.

"Because he-" Yuui sighed, "Nevermind. Just stay quiet for a minute." He craned his neck around to peer through the narrow gap between the stall and door.

Kurogane wrenched his face away from Yuui's grasp to follow suit. "Aw, hell," he groaned quietly, "Is that Subaru?"

"I think so," Yuui whispered, "But what is he-"

"To cede, or not to cede – that is the question," Subaru moaned loudly, leaning over a sink with his face buried in his hands, "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the fuzz and zippers of that outrageous costume, or to take arms against the undirectable little bastards and, by directing, end my career."

"Oh goo-" Yuui jerked his head upward to smack into Kurogane's jaw and cut off any further complaints.

"To resign, to quit – _no more!_ – and by resignation aim to end the heartache, and the thousand suffered humiliations that I am heir to. 'Tis a quandary unfairly constructed. To resign, to quit-" Subaru's face lit up here as it lifted from his palms, "To quit – perchance to acquire some of Sei-chan's 'aspirin…' Aye, there's the rub: for through that haze of pills what dreams may come as we shuffle off the springy end of this mortal coil are surely terrifying and full of fuzzy mascot suits…"

"He's flipped," Kurogane breathed and reached to unlatch the door, "Lemme outta here, I'm going to talk some sense into him."

"No!" Yuui hissed and slapped at his hand, "Who knows what he'll do if he knows he has an audience? Just wait here for- _OW_ ," Yuui quickly slapped a hand across his own mouth, though it was obvious at this point that Subaru wasn't paying any mind to the sounds coming from the stalls, "What did you do that for?"

"Do what?" Kurogane huffed, "Get out of the way, he needs help and I'm- _AH! What the hell are you pulling my hair for?_ "

"I'm not pulling your hair," Yuui insisted, rather indignantly, "You're the one pulling mine…"

Both men turned away from their stealthy viewing positions to face the back of the stall. From his perch upon the tank of the toilet, the school nurse grinned back at them.

Kurogane had him in a headlock only moments later. "Start talking, asshole," he glanced back at Yuui, who seemed to be silently pleading for the entire situation to not blow up in their faces here, of all places and added, " _Quietly._ "

"It's lovely weather we're having, isn't it?" Seishiro said, almost conversationally.

Kurogane slammed him ( _quietly_ ) against the wall, " _Lovely_ isn't quite the word I'm looking for. What the hell is going on here?"

"Well, I think that should be obvious," Seishiro coughed.

Yuui debated running off a list of things that seemed "obvious" about grown men lurking in bathroom stalls (especially ones who appeared to have test tubes secreted away in their vest), then swallowed it wholesale – it was all too likely that it would just be misconstrued as praise in this particular instance. "What did you slip my brother last night?" he demanded instead.

"Slip?" Seishiro seemed genuinely confused by this, which worried Yuui more than he cared to let on, "I only brought you a few cocktails. Unless…oh dear." His face grew distressingly red as laughter caught in his throat.

"Spit it out," Kurogane growled.

"It's a bit difficult with your elbow pressed into my windpipe," Seishiro coughed again. When Kurogane showed no signs of backing down, he continued on in a hoarse voice, "It's entirely possible that he's having a reaction to the extract of hagfish-"

"Extract of _what?_ "

"It's an aphrodisiac, my dear muscle-bound friend. Though I suppose with two such fine specimens you're never really in need of one-"

"You sick bastard."

"Now, now," Seishiro grinned, "I assure you it was an accident. Without my glasses, it can be very difficult to differentiate between that and Crème de Menthe. I thought it would go nice with the cocoa."

"You brought us cola."

"Either way!" Seishiro insisted, "It should wear off by the end of the day. And if it doesn't, I'm sure I can whip up something to help take the edge off. Now, if you could please let me down I think that we-"

"Shut up," Yuui said suddenly and waved his hands madly as the door to the washroom banged open once again and Subaru's steady stream of not-quite-iambic pentameter was interrupted by a high-pitched greeting.

"Yuuko says you should come to her office," it was saying. Yuui had to squint with one eye and maneuver his neck into a creatively painful configuration to make out that it was Soel perching on the sink next to Subaru making the request. "She says it's very important."

Subaru did not appear to be taking this request very well. The garbled stream of quasi-Shakespeare had been successfully quieted, only to be replaced with an even more garbled stream of… _garbling_. And rocking back and forth. And keening.

"It's just Yuuko," Soel continued, "There's nothing to be afraid of…"

"Out, damned bunny-thing!" Subaru cackled, " Out, I say! One; two; why, then 'tis time to do it! This bathroom is murky! Fie, my mascot, fie! A teacher, and afeard? What need I fear who knows it, when none yet can get that damned Doumeki to emote? Yet who would have thought the old chairwoman to have had so much sake in her…?"

"Kurogane," Yuui murmured softly, turning his attention back to the struggle still going on at the back of the stall, "Let him down. Someone needs to deal with this, and I don't think you or I have the skills necessary."

"You think _he_ does?" Kurogane demanded, looking vaguely horrified.

"No, but he has a personal interest _and_ experience," Yuui sighed, "And we still need to find Fay."

"If it's Fay you're looking for, I may be able to be of some assistance," Seishiro offered, "Perhaps we could come to some agreement."

"No," Kurogane grunted, "I'll go out there and beat some sense into him myself."

There was a quiet, yet sharp shattering noise, and Yuui turned to find himself face to face with what appeared to be the remains of a test tube. Seishiro pressed the jagged glass to Kurogane's arm, "I don't think that will be necessary."

"Cute," Kurogane scoffed and tightened his hold, "Spill it. _Now._ "

Seishiro dropped the test tube. "You'll want to check the third floor men's room. That's where they usually smoke, at any rate."

"Smoke? Fay doesn't like cigarettes."

"Who said anything about cigarettes?" Seishiro coughed, "Now let me down."

Yuui rolled his eyes. There wasn't going to be an easy way out of this mess anyway. "Come on, Kurogane," he sighed, "Let him worry about Subaru and we can find my idiot brother."

There was a long pause before Kurogane finally relented and released Seishiro from the headlock. Seishiro slid back to rest on the toilet and blinked a few times, readjusting the lapels of his white coat. "Well?" Kurogane demanded, "Get out there."

"Well, what?" Seishiro wondered, fiddling with a button, "He's perfectly fine, you know."

"He certainly doesn't _sound_ fine," Yuui scoffed, "He's gone the full Macbeth!"

"Yes," Seishiro grinned, "He recites with such… _gusto_."

"Gusto or no," Yuui seethed, "What the hell kind of nurse would let him keep carrying on like that?"

"One who knows his propensities for angst and the inexplicable rush of serotonins they bring."

"What the hell does that mean?" Kurogane barked.

"It means," Seishiro continued with a grin, "That he's an emotional masochist and can never be fully happy unless he's on the verge of a breakdown. In other words – he may appear disturbed, but in reality, he secretly likes it."

"You're sick," Kurogane gripped the collar of Seishiro's coat and hauled him toward the door of the stall, "Just get the hell out there."

"And keep him away from the chairwoman's office," Yuui pleaded.

"Yes, yes," Seishiro waved this away as he unlatched the door and squeezed out the narrow gap between Yuui and the wall, "It'll all be taken care of."

"Do you really think that was the best idea?" Kurogane hissed as the door closed behind Seishiro once again, leaving he and Yuui alone in the stall.

"No…" Yuui admitted, staring at the floor. There were probably a million better solutions, but his mind was elsewhere at the moment and Kurogane hadn't exactly been forthcoming with ideas that didn't include beating one or more parties into the floor. "But it'll do for now," he picked at the latch on the door, "Now let's get out of here and find Fay before he gets himself into even more trouble."

"Right," Kurogane agreed and pulled the stall open.

He slammed it shut a moment later as a rhythmic sound wafted in through gap.

Yuui grimaced, but gripped Kurogane's wrist tightly. Apparently Seishiro wasn't the only member of that party with a penchant for hair-pulling. "Close your eyes and run for the door."

* * *

Kamui carefully ripped a page from his master script, scraping his fingernail down the binding and folding it precisely to achieve a pristine edge. He peeled the page toward him slowly, grinning with maniacal glee as the fibers split and tore with relative ease. _Perfect._ He ran the pad of his finger across the torn edge as it loosed itself completely from the book, then smiled as he wadded the sheet into a ball and chucked it full force at the hulking idiot down-row from him. "Oi," he hissed, making no real effort to quiet his voice, "Why the hell is Doumeki in heels?"

Fuuma cocked an eyebrow as the ball of paper bounced from his brow and landed in his lap. He plucked it back up and tossed it to himself casually, "Is it a problem?"

"Of course it's a problem," Kamui growled and impatiently ripped another page from the script, not bothering with the niceties this time and leaving a jagged edge down its side. He debated whether to chuck it at Fuuma or at the obnoxiously seething Watanuki seated the row ahead of them (normally he wouldn't have been bothere, but the mouth-breathing was really doing his head in). "It's pulling me right out of the scene and-"

"Well aren't you particular," Fuuma smirked, "I had no idea you were actually into theater, Kamui. Surely, since you're such a connoisseur, you've heard of a wardrobe malfunction?"

"They're not malfunctioning" Kamui wadded and whipped the paper at Fuuma's face once again. "They're _functioning_ disturbing well," he grumbled, noting the none-too-subtle clicking and clacking as Doumeki sauntered (well, _sashayed_ was probably more accurate, but that just upset Kamui on an entirely different level), "What the hell is the point of them?"

"I felt the scene would really benefit from him towering a bit over Ophelia. You know, give him a bit of menace," Fuuma said with a grin that was not so much irritating as it was disgusting, "And since Himawari is still out sick…"

"He's not _supposed_ to be menacing," Kamui spat, refusing to look that bastard Fuuma in the eye and continuing to direct his glare toward the stage, "You're the only one that would even _think_ something like that would be appropriate-"

"Anyway," Fuuma continued, blatantly ignoring him, "Since out little understudy Yamazaki is about the same height, I gave Doumeki a pair of platform heeled boots to really stress some of the domineering-"

" _HE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DOMINEERING-_ "

"But the entire sole broke off," Fuuma laughed, "Can you believe it? Cheap stage clothes." He sighed loudly and cast a longing look back at his co-director, "I had to give him a pair of Sakura's heels. The props seem to help though, don't you think? You almost don't notice the monotone. Maybe I could get him some glass shards for him to heft threateningly…"

Kamui stared at the stage, willing Fuuma to burst into flames and only becoming more irritated when his telekinetic pyromania failed spectacularly. They had only hauled in that little Yamazaki monstrosity (who was now fabulously messing up all of his lines) to save his poor twin from bursting a blood vessel at the prospect of listening to Doumeki argue with himself as both Hamlet _and_ Ophelia all morning. He'd have been more vocal in his opposition if he had known the upshots of this would leave him just as flustered as Subaru. _No,_ he reminded himself firmly, _I am_ not _as crazy as Subaru._

"Well, that's debatable," Fuuma smirked, and Kamui realized with a grimace that he'd just said that _out loud_. "But even a crazy person has to admit that at least the heels add a certain… _something_ to the scene that makes it more bearable."

Kamui snarled, "And I'm sure that Watanuki kid's seething is _not_ that something?"

"Wata-who?" Fuuma looked scandalized, "Surely you're not suggesting I kept him in the dress just to provoke another student? Especially when your seething is more than adequate." He paused, stroking his chin, "Speaking of Subaru…I haven't seen him since the alarms went off."

"He's taking a nap," Kamui snapped, though he was only mostly certain of this. This morning's rehearsal had been particularly rough and Kamui had been forced (out of the milk of brotherly…no, that wasn't right…out of brotherly something, at any rate) to suggest a rest backstage after his brother had slipped into his third profanity laced, iambic pentametered rant of the morning. (And if his "suggesting" took the form of frog marching and mild sedatives, it was only because he had been _concerned_.)

"In the nurse's station?" Fuuma smiled sweetly.

"Go to hell," Kamui crossed his arms and stared down the stage. No, he was fairly certain Subaru was still backstage. The pile of blankets he'd left draped over him had still been intact when they'd come back after the fire alarm – he'd double check after their next break. If they ever _got_ to their next break. The way things were shaping up… "Goddamn it, Doumeki," he shouted, springing to his feet in the aisle, "You are contemplating suicide – _not_ trying to drive the audience to it!"

"Kamui-"

"And Yamazaki," he continued, shouting over Fuuma's warning tones, " _You_ are supposed to be lurking off to the side, looking horribly distraught. You look like you're having a goddamned seizure."

"I'm sorry, Sensei!" Yamazaki called back, "I was trying to use my body to convey my distress. Did you know that the universal sign for an impending burst aneurysm is to waggle your fingers like this under your nose and then circle your hips in a figure eight?"

"What the hell are you going on about aneurysms for?"

"It's true!" Yamazki continued to waggle his hips around, swishing and swirling the skirts of his costume obnoxiously, "It first started as an American military drill during the first Gulf War. The soldiers couldn't call out from their stations, so they needed a means of visual communication that would stand out against the desert background. So they wiggled like this when they felt the aneurysm about to burst-"

"You don't _feel_ an aneurysm, you little-"

 _"Kamui-"_

"They added the fingers under the nose later on, so that it wouldn't be confused with the signal for a spider crawling up their pant legs-"

 _"THAT'S IT! EVERYONE SHUT THE HELL UP AND GET BACK TO YOUR MARKS. WE ARE GOING TO RUN THIS FROM THE TOP OF THE SCENE WITHOUT ANY INTERRUPTIONS OR SO HELP ME I AM GOING TO RIP YOUR THR-"_

He found himself abruptly cut off and the wind knocked from his lungs as Fuuma's backside crashed into his gut, pummeling him backward into his abandoned chair. The rest of Fuuma followed in short order, pinning him to the seat and effectively blocking his view of the stage. "Relax, Kaumi," he hissed out through clenched teeth, "There's no sense in losing your job over something so silly."

"Get off me, you goddamned hulk."

"I think everyone is safer this way," Fuuma grinned over his shoulder and swung his legs to the side, crossing them over the seat next to them, "Yourself included."

"I'm going to kill you," Kamui seethed as an arm wrapped behind his shoulder, "Get the hell off."

"Later," Fuuma winked, then turned his attention back to the stage, "Alright – let's try this again from Ophelia's entrance. Then we're going to take a nice _long_ break so that we don't have to worry about any sort of aneurysms."

There was a muffled agreement from the cast, who shuffled back to their marks on the stage and waited for their cues. Kamui drew in a deep breath and sanki further into the chair as Fuuma took it upon himself to direct the whole of scene without budging from his lap. Doumeki was reciting in more of a monotone than usual, though he at least he had the sense to _thwack_ his heels against the stage floor where Fuuma directed to accent some of his harsher declarations of un-love. Maybe the glass shards weren't a _terrible_ idea either…

 _What the hell was wrong with him that he was even entertaining these thoughts?_ Kamui would have smacked a hand across his face if Fuuma's ass weren't so terribly effective at pinning them to his lap. _Deep breaths, deep breaths. You are_ not _Subaru, you_ don't _need a nap…_

"Yamazaki, that is ' _I, of ladies most deject and wretched_ ,'" Fuuma snorted out above him, "While _letching_ is a particularly astute description of the face you're making, it's not really what we're going for. Now, Doumeki," he shifted, digging his tail bone premptively into Kamui's gut to drive out any remaining air that might be used to form a complaint, "You could hover more menacingly. Maybe lick your lips a bit? Just try not to-"

 _BAM_

It didn't especially matter that Kamui was unable to put voice to his rage at this set of instructions, as it appeared the stage was intent on doing it for him. Or maybe that was a stage- _hand_. Either way, _something_ had dropped a bucket of purple paint from the rafters and splattered the entirety of the stage and cast with its contest. The resulting shock and awe bought him enough of an opening to wriggle his way out from beneath Fuuma's monstrous ass and bound up to the stage before he could be trapped or pinned or otherwise molested once again.

"I told you to keep Yukito out of the rafters!" he bellowed toward the hot-lighted catwalks, "If we lose one more cast member to a falling tool or paint or what-have-you, am I personally going to put out each and every one of your eyes. Now get the hell down from there and- _WHAT IS SO GODDAMNED FUNNY?_ "

He had to admit that he was a little surprised when the chemistry teacher flipped down to land in the middle of the paint puddle on the stage. He was more surprised when Fay fell completely out of his graceful and cat-like landing crouch to roll, splashing and howling and laughing, around the paint.

"It's not my fault!" a disgruntled voice called from overhead. Kamui shielded his eyes to squint overhead to find Yue glaring back down at him, his long ponytail drenched in purple and dripping onto the lights. He held two other students against the railing to either side, fingers flexed firmly around the scruff of their necks – Kazahaya and Rikuou if the lights weren't playing too many tricks on his eyes – both of whom were shaking with laughter and making intermittent "Wooo~" noises.

"What the-"

"I caught the three of them up here digging through my supplies," Yue continued, "Nearly chewed through my entire collection of mixing palates."

"We were just trying to cheer Fai-sensei up," Kazahaya cackled, "He wanted a pizza, so we thought we'd find him one."

"In the catwalks," Kamui ground out.

"We got a bit lost."

Kamui bit his lip hard enough to fill his mouth with an iron-y flow of blood. "Get them down here," he managed to bite out with some modicum of control, "And get your supplies out of the catwalks. What the hell do you have them up there for in the first place?"

Yue's eyes narrowed, "If you would prefer a backdrop with Yukito's face print on it, I can certainly arrange for that."

" _Fine,_ " Kamui growled, "Leave them there. Just get those two down here and…" he trailed off as a sharp set of fingernails dug into his shoulder and slowly turned his head. "Ms. Chairwoman…"

Yuuko's eyes practically sparkled with glee as they took in the chaos around her, and Kamui held back a shudder. "Looks like you're having a spot of trouble here this afternoon," she said with a grin, "You know, I was just telling your brother that I am still in need of mascots for the fair, so if you'd like to call the whole thing off-"

" _No,_ " Kamui said quickly. His memories of Subaru's zipper-burns from last year were still too fresh. "That won't be necessary. Wait – you just talked to Subaru…?" This did not bode well…

"Oh yes," Yuuko carried on, striding across the stage to crouch at Fay's side and wipe some of the purple mess from his face, "I thought you were the one who placed him on extended bed-rest in the nurse's station…?"

 _Goddamn it._ "Er, no," he said, "That sounds like a medical decision." He flexed his nails into his palm; he was going to kill Seishiro. He _knew_ he should have double-checked backstage. Now god only knew what that bastard had been up to-

"It's a good thing the school keeps such a well-qualified staff employed then," Yuuko hummed and pulled Fay to his feet with a flourish. "Well," she continued, "Do keep my offer in mind. But for now, I'm afraid that I just need to borrow Fay-sensei for a moment. I have some unfinished business with he and his brother. And that brute of a gym teacher." She grinned wickedly and hefted Fay upwards as his knees buckled and he nearly collapsed cackling something that sounded like "Kuro-pissy." "Best of luck to you," she waved with her free hand as she maneuvered the both of them toward the back of the auditorium.

Kamui waited until the doors closed behind them to turn his attention back to the matter at hand. By that time, however, Fuuma had made his way across the stage and hefted him over his shoulders as he barked orders at the cast and it was all null and void anyway.

 _He did_ not _need a nap, goddamn it._

* * *

Yuui fidgeted, running through _exactly_ how they had ended up in this predicament in his head for the hundredth time that hour. They had made it to the third floor men's room, only to find it empty (apart from a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke that left Yuui coughing and hacking and suddenly feeling a whole lot better about life) and on exiting-

Well, that had been where the whole day had unraveled. Walking out to find the chairwoman waiting for them wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world, had it not been overly apparent that she'd been pressing her ear to the door moments before they'd thrown it open. The knowing smirk she wore as she announced (as if by some miracle they _couldn't_ hear for themselves) that the fire alarms were still sounding and that she was going to have to escort them out of the building for their safety didn't exactly soften the blow either.

Yuui still wasn't sure when "escort you outside" had warped into "escort you to my office and maneuver your backs into a corner," but at least the alarms had stopped sounding and he could at least manage to _wonder_ about it.

And then she had left them there to go in search of the missing Fluorite twin, laughing and heels clicking as she waved over her shoulder and warned them not to go anywhere until she returned. Depending on Fay's whereabouts, she warned, that could be anywhere from ten minutes to two hours. If they were thirsty, they could make themselves at home with a beverage.

Naturally, she hadn't bothered to leave out any glassware _or_ beverages.

"We're being set up," Yuui mumbled quietly and rocked back and forth on the sofa, "She _knows_ -"

"And even if she didn't, she'd damn well figure it out with you carrying on like this!" Kurogane groaned, "Pull yourself together. Take a deep breath and puff out your chest." Yuui managed to do this, only to have all his wind knocked right back out of him as Kurogane clapped a hand across his back in encouragement. "See? You're fine. Now we just have to steel ourselves to whatever crap she's about to throw at us and-"

"Kuro-peroni!"

"Oh god, _it's the ghost,_ " Kurogane shouted, digging his fingers into his knees and nearly jumping into Yuui's lap.

"Now, Kurogane," a stern, yet horribly familiar voice addressed him from the doorway, "You should know by now that there's no such thing."

"Ahaha…silly Kuro-sausage."

"What the?" Kurogane stared in horror at the lump of Fay draped over the chairwoman as they waltzed in from the hallway.

"He wanted a pizza," Yuuko explained very calmly, "Apparently you're the next best thing." She set Fay down at the edge of the sofa and maneuvered herself into a seat opposite. "Now," she said with a wide grin and slapped her palms against her knees excitedly, "I wanted to talk about this afternoon's alarms- Oh," she frowned at the empty coffee table in front of them, "We could really use some refreshments, wouldn't you say?"

"No," Yuui waved his hands wildly in front of him, "It's probably best to just get on to-"

"Nonsense!" Yuuko silenced him, "Where _would_ my manners be? Give me just one second, would you?" She smiled devilishly, "Unless, Fay, you'd like to do the honors?"

"Oh, of course!" Fay laughed and, before Yuui or Kurogane had the wits to stop him, bounded across the office to the medicine cabinet.

Yuui felt his face fall, even as the wind from Kurogane's palm slapping against his face tickled his ears. "Fay.."

Fay stopped, seemingly lost in thought, and turned back to Yuuko. "I'm not sure there's anything in here," he grinned, "Should I head down to the cafeteria?"

Yuui could have kissed him. (Probably would, later, when he was done being an idiot, but that could wait.) The crashing of Yuuko's smug expression into ruinous despair was breathtaking.

"No," she said, and bit at her lip, "I think I have something in the back room." Without another word, she rose to her feet and plodded dejectedly to the door at the back of the room.

Yuui exhaled a deep sigh of relief and gripped Kurogane's hand (still balled into a fist against his knees). Fay smiled happily and curled into a ball on the floor. _Safe for another day._

Now, if they could only talk Fay out of the eyeliner…


End file.
